Letters to the Editor: October 30, 2013

Re­cently, you may have seen com­mer­cials and signs ad­vert­ising the “Show It” cam­paign, which ad­vises voters to bring their ID to the polls for the Nov. 5 elec­tion. Gov­ernor Corbett has de­cided to spend $1 mil­lion to edu­cate the pub­lic about the Voter ID law, whose fate is still wait­ing on a de­term­in­a­tion from the courts, while he and the Re­pub­lic­an ma­jor­it­ies in both cham­bers fail to provide prop­er fund­ing to edu­cate our chil­dren. Keep in mind that, since tak­ing of­fice, the gov­ernor has cut more than $1 bil­lion from early-child­hood edu­ca­tion pro­grams.

I thought it im­port­ant to tell you what Corbett isn’t: it’s not ne­ces­sary to show your ID to cast your vote in the Nov. 5 elec­tion. The voter ID law places a bur­eau­crat­ic hurdle in front of people who don’t have a val­id photo ID — such as seni­or cit­izens whose driver’s li­censes have ex­pired or who nev­er drove.

Al­though our of­fice has been work­ing hard to make cer­tain every­one has the prop­er ID re­quired un­der the law, it is es­tim­ated that over 500,000 voters in Pennsylvania don’t cur­rently pos­sess the ne­ces­sary iden­ti­fic­a­tion. North­east Phil­adelphia has more than 29,000 re­gistered voters without prop­er ID.

Cur­rently, the con­tro­ver­sial law has been sus­pen­ded pending leg­al chal­lenges, and a de­cision by the Com­mon­wealth Court is due later this year. Whatever the de­cision is at that time, it will not be in ef­fect for this up­com­ing elec­tion. However, we should be pre­pared for the fu­ture. In Novem­ber, when you go to the polls to cast your vote, please show them your ID and ask those work­ing if your ID will be ac­cept­able un­der the voter ID law.

If not, please stop by my of­fice so that we can be cer­tain you are pre­pared for next year’s elec­tions which will be im­port­ant for our com­munity to take part in.

State Rep. Ed Neilson

Time to make a change

This health care sys­tem (the Af­ford­able Care Act), os­tens­ibly labeled “Obama­care,” may turn out to be a good thing for the coun­try, but it has yet to be proven, so for now, no one knows.

The only thing we know for sure is that the Tea Party hates it and is try­ing des­per­ately to dis­mantle it as they are demon­strat­ing so pro­fusely.

This is­sue, com­bined with the ex­cess­ive spend­ing by the pres­id­ent, has brought our gov­ern­ment to a stand­still, pre­cip­it­at­ing hard­ships for many gov­ern­ment work­ers and dis­ap­point­ment to the tour­ists who have come to see our mu­seums and monu­ments.

However, our rep­res­ent­at­ives and pres­id­ent in Wash­ing­ton who have caused this de­bacle with their ob­stin­ate re­fus­al to com­prom­ise con­tin­ue col­lect­ing their hand­some salar­ies and elab­or­ate perks. Something wrong with this pic­ture? You bet your life.

Hence, I pro­pose that the only ones who lose their in­come and be­ne­fits are the ones who cause these prob­lems. If you don’t do your job, you don’t get paid. I don’t know how they ac­com­plish any­thing in the first place when their “breaks” total more time than when they’re ac­tu­ally work­ing.

We are the people in this demo­cracy and we really should be call­ing the shots here, but un­for­tu­nately, the only thing we can do at this point is keep a re­cord of whom the cul­prits are, and vote them out of of­fice, which is our time to speak. They will all get the mes­sage.

Jim O’Keefe

Castor Gar­dens

Kudos to Mary Be­nussi

The Ta­cony Civic As­so­ci­ation has re­cently had its pres­id­ent, Mary Be­nussi, resign. This is a non-glam­or­ous vo­lun­teer job that re­quires many hours of hard work. Without the sup­port of mem­bers and the com­munity, it can­not work.

Mary, through your time and ef­forts and your vari­ous vis­its to City Coun­cil and many vis­its to City Hall, many good things have been ac­com­plished for the Ta­cony com­munity.

The time you spent on be­half of your com­munity to have the sum­mer con­certs at Dis­ston Re­cre­ation Cen­ter, the first Fri­day of the month com­munity art fest­iv­al, aware­ness along Tor­res­dale Av­en­ue, the Christ­mas gath­er­ing at the lib­rary for the kids, the May­fair-Holmes­burg Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade and many oth­ers have im­proved Ta­cony.

Mary, we thank you for the many hours of hard work that you spent on be­half of your neigh­bors and your com­munity in the Ta­cony sec­tion of Phil­adelphia.

Le­on and Mar­ie Dutkiewicz

Pennypack Woods

Toomey votes against gov­ern­ment re­open­ing

On Wed­nes­day, Oct 16, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey showed what a hard-core ex­trem­ist he truly is when he voted against the bill to re­open the gov­ern­ment and keep Amer­ica solvent. His New Jer­sey coun­ter­part, Re­pub­lic­an Sen­at­or Jef­frey Chiesa, voted in fa­vor of the same bill stat­ing, “It was the only re­spons­ible course we have.”

Toomey, who chose to take the ir­re­spons­ible course, was disin­genu­ous when he com­plained that the bill did not ad­dress the gov­ern­ment debt when if fact the bill sets up a bi­par­tis­an com­mit­tee to ad­dress that very is­sue and come up with a solu­tion by mid-Decem­ber. Re­gard­ing gov­ern­ment grid­lock in Wash­ing­ton, Sen­at­or Toomey is clearly part of the prob­lem and not part of the solu­tion.

Wil­li­am Cooney

Fox Chase

A very suc­cess­ful expo

I want to ex­tend my heart­felt ap­pre­ci­ation for every­one who came to the Pennsylvania Na­tion­al Guard Ar­mory on Oct. 4 for my Seni­or Expo. We had a tre­mend­ous re­sponse, and every­one seemed to have a good time while learn­ing new and im­port­ant things about avail­able health care tools and or­gan­iz­a­tions, as well as state, loc­al and fed­er­al pro­grams.

I am ex­tremely honored to be serving seni­ors and all res­id­ents of the 5th dis­trict and am already look­ing for­ward to next year’s Seni­or Expo at the Ar­mory.